The dress is perfect for me. It fits my figure and certainly accentuates my curves, while being modest enough to make me comfortable. It sits snug against my waist before flaring out in waves of pale green and white fabric, belling out around me like water hitting the ground. It was generally cheap because of the pure vintage style that it was, and it was godsend and a pure miracle that it fit me.
Tessa was constantly complimenting me when I tried it on, all the girls shrieked when I gave a slow twirl in it and they all cheer. Just two minutes ago, Tessa actually wolf-whistled when she picks me up in her car.
In front of the school, where music leaks through the walls, we pose for pictures. Endless clicking from phones is undermined by what sounds like Martin Garrix, but the laughter of these girls is louder and brighter when silly faces ensue. Tessa pulls me into a picture and places a hand on my lower back—which sends bolts of electricity rolling up my spine—and dips me like we're tango dancers. I laugh out loud and grab her wrist to keep me upright, and Sophie, behind roils of giggles, takes the photo. The girls cheer behind her before taking our place, kissing each other's cheek for every picture. We manage to pull aside a dark-skinned senior in a different class to take our picture for us, and his date—who's wearing a stunning tuxedo with a red bowtie— grins at us when the boy blushes. We learn our impromptu photographer is Aidan, and his date (who's the ultimate theatre kid) is Alex. Tessa leans over and whispered softly in my ear, "cutest gay couple in school." I nod enthusiastically while Aidan counts down, and while other girls sling arms across each other's shoulders, I'm woven into the friend group while Tessa leans over and plants a kiss on my cheek.
I'm happy I'm not a blushing mess in the photo.
When we're finally to walk in, Tessa and I pair off while Sophie, Grace, Elizabeth and the rest of the girls walk behind and chatter happily, constantly calling out to us to tell us tiny bits of gossip. As we enter the gym, I feel the bass thrum in my chest. Tessa slides her arm out of mine and clasps my hand instead, and my heart flip-flops in my chest. I squeeze her hand, rubbing my thumb on her palm while I try to ignore how the heat blooms on my face.
The girls drag us into the middle of the crowd and dance to the electric music that pulses from the speakers. I find that I'm actually getting into it, and soon when the bass drops, while the crowd jumps as one, I find myself jumping too.
Energy is slithering along the floor between legs, and it fills me with such a promising, wild happiness. I turn my face up to the ceiling and belt the lyrics, and the girls around me laugh and sing too. With my arms raised above my head, I let the music guide me as I let my hips sway, as my head falls back. I haven't felt this happy in such a long time. In fact, I don't think I've ever been this free. The purple and blue lights shift around us like water, and it's like the atmosphere is pressed against me like the dancing figures of dozens of people. Marcy of the past would find this uncomfortable and unforgiving, but now I can't stop smiling. I forget about Francesca being gone, I forget the heaviness in my chest, and I just dance. I am free and I am myself, and tonight is proof of that.
A slow song—Perfect by Ed Sheeran—finally comes on. I, as expected, immediately look around for Tessa, who is one step ahead of me as always. It's just me dancing with a friend anyways, right? I find her already grinning at me; she spins me into slow dancing position and dances exaggeratedly good, her legs swing in wild angles while we shift from foot to foot. This lasts for most of the song, until the last chorus starts up.
I find myself staring at her, and she meets my gaze and stares back. Our dance slows to a soft swaying, moving gently with the music. Her grey eyes are warm and almost unfocused as they search my own, and the lights flicker softly across her iris with soft edges of blue and purple. A small smile plays across her lips, and I realize now that I'm staring at her lips. Which means she notices I'm staring at her lips. Which means I need to stop. Something unusual takes over the overwhelming fear of rejection, and I lean forward instead, the final chord playing. My eyes flicker closed as I get closer and closer and—
"What are you doing?" she asks loudly, shoving me away. The hushed whispers and laughter of the students around us going silent while the DJ scrambles for another song to play.
"I-I just thought that..." I stammer out, my arms quickly snap back from Tessa's waist to hug my stomach. The space around us empties out until we're in the middle of a circle, and my brain freezes with terror.
"Thought that I was lesbian or some shit like that? You thought that I could ever like you?" Tessa responds loudly. Panic fills my head, because...she outed me. In front of the entire senior class, she outed me. At the flash of hurt across my face, her features softened by a fraction. I think it'll last, at least until that glint of betrayal—as if I'm the one who betrayed her—returns. "I'm not into you like that, Marcy. I'm perfectly fine with you being lesbian or whatever, as long as you don't make a move on me..." She crosses her arms across her chest and takes two steps away from me, like she's desperate for space from me; from our clasped hands and our cuddles and our hugs.
At this point, Sophie and Grace have crossed the gym and were flanking the distance that was between me and Tessa, forming a widespread diamond of girls in the centre of an ever-growing circle somewhere in the gym. The gym was still quiet, and the next song starts up with considerably lower volume. Me getting rejected isn't their fucking entertainment, god fuck.
I realize that I'm crying, and I feel the beginnings of humiliation boiling up inside me; I turn and flee from the gym. I push people aside, and when I'm finally in the hallway, I yank the bow Tessa bought for me from my hair and leave it on the floor. I don't know where I'm going until I end up in the bathroom.
Once in the comfort in the bathroom stall, I sit down on the toilet and shove my hand into my hair, not wiping the tears that streak my cheeks. "I'm so stupid," I whisper, hiccuping. I repeat the word stupid, then worthless, expendable, and so on until I'm out of insults directed at myself.
"Marcy?" a meek voice says, high-pitched with worry.
Grace.
I hadn't even heard her coming in.
"Please," I whisper pathetically, and a soft knock sounds on the bathroom door. I quietly open the stall door and stare at her, my makeup a complete mess, my hair down and brushing my neck. She's clutching my hair bow.
"I...I didn't know you liked Tessa like that." she says quietly.
"Yeah, well..." I respond, and my voice is hoarse from sobbing and whispering. "She didn't either, apparently." Grace quietly clasps my hands and holds them tightly, looking me straight in the eye.
"It will be okay, I promise."
And for some weird reason, I believe her. Maybe it was the fact that even now that she knew, she still held my hands.
~~~~
I'm driven home by Isabel, while Clare sits passenger. They let me out with sympathetic yet wary smiles as if they're scared of sharing too much affection. My stomach tightens, and I realize I can't do this.
When I unlock the door and make my way in, Mom sits up. She knows something's wrong, something every Mom seems to know. It doesn't take much prodding before I collapse and tell her everything, crying in her arms while she rocks me. I tell her about how hesitant I was to like Tessa, how I had finally found home and life with her and how I had thought I found something else too. She tries to tell me all of the times Dad broke up with her before they got married, but I find that it doesn't relieve me much. At least Mom had someone to break up with; I didn't even get to the dating stage with Tessa, not even the reciprocated feelings part. I smile at her anyways and thank her before I retreat up to my room.
It always freaks me out, how easy it is to fake a smile. It shouldn't be that easy, but I mastered it after a year of my best friend being gone. I mastered it after I had to pretend that I wasn't still grieving.
I stare at my ceiling for a bit, and I play through every scene between Tessa and I in my head, sift through every interaction, searching for anything that indicated that she wasn't into me.
This is why I feel disconnected; I can't differentiate someone else's feelings from my own. And that fact scares me more than I can possibly say because lord knows I'll make the same mistake again.
I never had to do that with Francesca, I think, and I allow the inevitable guilt and shame and utter sadness to open its mouth and swallow me whole. Down, down, down I spiral, until there's nothing left.
YOU ARE READING
Forgetting Francesca
Teen FictionMarcy Hampton, a queer high school student, finds grief to be a strange, foreign thing. Her best friend, Francesca Kingsley, however, is very familiar with the concept of grief. Both girls were always warned there would be problems in high school, b...
